The 2nd Division of the Michigan Naval Militia was transferred to Grand Rapids in 1915. The unit held its first organization meeting in a building near Pheonix Club on Reed's Lake on 19 July 1916.  Until after World War II, the Reservists trained at the facility because it had its own pier.  The 2nd Division gathered and trained recruits until 17 May 1917, when the men were called to active duty for World War I at the Ninth Naval District's Chicago headquarters in Great Lakes, Illinois.  During the war, the men became part of the National Naval Volunteers, which later merged into the 2nd Class Naval Reserve.  After World War I, the Grand Rapids unit reorganized.  The men were recalled for active duty again in 1941.

Owing to the strong Naval Reserve program already in existance in Grand Rapids, the Navy authorized the construction of a Naval Reserve Center in 1946.  In the fall of that year, Organized Naval Reserve Battalion 9-24 was activated. In early 1947, the City of Grand Rapids negotiated a lease with the Navy for a 3.74-acre site at 1863 Monroe Avenue, N.W.  The Commandant of the Ninth Naval District approved the lease.  Gene Hurley Construction Company began construction on the Quonset hut Reserve Training Center building in June 1947; the Center was finished by 1 July 1948. The $1 million facility was ready for use by October 1949, after the training equipment was installed in the second phase of the construction program.  There were four battalions (Naval Reserve Organized Surface Battalions 9-24, 9-96, 9-97, and 9-98) training at the Center when it was commisioned on 29 March 1950.  In addition to active duty service Korea and Vietman, the Grand Rapids Reservists also ran a strong recruiting program and were trained extensively at Great Lakes. Reservists were also heavily involved with the construction and commisioning of the USS Grand Rapids, a patrol frigite that was constructed in 1970.

By 1990, Naval Marine Corps Reserve Center (NMCRC) Grand Rapids became the host to the Naval Reserve Recruiting Coordinator Detachment Two, the U.S. Coast Guard Recruiting Office, the Civiil Air Patrol youth and adult programs, the Young Marines and Sea Cadets.  The NMCRC also sponsored the Area Community Service and Training Council's distribution of excess government surplus food to the needy.  Today, the facility continues to operate as a superior facility, with a mission to "train, administer, and support assigned Selected Reserve units and members and to foster good community relations".

The Navy put the Center at Grand Rapids on the list for the Whole Center Repair Program in the late 1980s.  Repairs to the postwar buildings were completed in December 1990 and would add 10 years to the life of the Center.  In 1991, Great Lakes Systems, Inc., of Jenison, Michigan, installed a $300,000 new roof on the main building.  The renovated Center housed 12 Naval and Marine Corps Reserve units, with the transfer of 120 Reservists from a closed center in Muskegon, Michigan.

Unlike units in other cities that have long since replaced their Quonset hut/Butler building Centers, Grand Rapids Reservists view their facility as a valuable piece of twentieth-century Naval Reserve history.  Today, NMCRC Grand Rapids includes original E-plan masonry headhouse with Quonset hut wings and the wood-frame Garage built in 1948, a masonry multi-purpose building constructed in 1953, and a one-story wood-frame addition built in 1978 for the Marine Corps Reserves. NMCRC Grand Rapids has since been renamed to Navy Opeartional Support Center (NOSC) Grand Rapids.